In honour of the amazing Orson Welles terror-filled broadcast of War of the Worlds, several folks have put together a Facebook page celebrating WORLD AUDIO DRAMA DAY! If you’re on the book of faces, make certain your go to the link and hit LIKE! Pass it on to your own friends on your own page, and keep the momentum going. Just 10 days till the World goes Audio Dramatic!
When you’re on the hunt for more Audio Drama, don’t forget to look in the sky… or rather in the clouds. While there’s all kinds of concern in the media right now about using i-clouds to store your data, here’s one place where you can be sure you’ll be safe to look up some listening. EC Bond shares with us a great collaborative place for those folks who use SoundCloud to put up their finished audio drama works. The Modern Audio Drama stream is a super place to find your favourites and new ones too! Come walk the clouds!
So after some speculation it’s finally come to pass! YOUR Sonic Society is listed in the new i-tunes Modern Radio Drama page as an influencer of Audio Drama. You’ll recognize a pile of other grand folks in the genre as well. Hooray!
Congratulations to all of YOU out there. Without our Society Members- the listeners, we never would have made it. Ten years later but we finally have our own page on itunes. Wonderful! Go see for yourself at the itunes link. 
Desert News is buzzing about Audiobooks: A Rising Industry and a Multi-tasker’s Dream and it makes one ponder.
If audio books are on the rise because- as audiophiles have said for years now- it’s easier to do things and listen to stories, then are we on the cusp of seeing Audio Drama make another burst into the consciousness of main stream?
What will happen when the whole world starts to realize the power of spoken word and the value of it over all things video?
Will we enter the third age of Modern Audio?
Who listens to Audio Drama anyway? That’s always been the big question we who create new Audio plays always asks. Is this a medium that’s still mostly appreciated by Baby Boomers? Or is it the Gen X’ers who listened to A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Star Wars Radio Drama in the eighties which sparked their imaginations for all things audio?
Well, David Farquhar from Moonlight Audio and Voices in the Wind Theatre has some interesting stats.
Without taking up more ink, let’s let David describe his findings.
WHO LISTENS TO AUDIO THEATRE? YOU MAY BE SURPRISED!
Audio Theatre or Audio Drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance and with no visual component, depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story. As noted by Tim Crook in his book Radio Drama Theory And Practice “It is auditory in the physical dimension but equally powerful as a visual force in the psychological dimension.”
Audio Theatre has been around in one shape or form since the 1880’s when they were listened to on cylinders. It wasn’t until the late 1920’s that audio theatre achieved widespread popularity on the emerging medium of radio. By the 1940s, it was a leading international popular entertainment. With the advent of television in the 1950s, however, audio theatre lost some of its popularity, and in some countries has never regained large audiences. So, does this mean that this once popular art form has just faded away into oblivion? Only listened to by the over 65 crowd?
Now, this is where it starts to get really interesting! By looking at the download demographics we can find the answer as to what age groups are actively listening to and downloading audio theatre.
(The following statistics are derived from Moonlight Audio Theatre’s website traffic and download traffic as calculated by Google Analytics and Moonlight’s Podcast Provider)
DOWNLOADS / LISTENS BY AGE GROUP
18-24 – 27.5%
25-34 – 33.5%
35-44 –15.50%
45-54 – 12.50%
55-64 – 5.50%
65+ 5.50%As it turns out it’s the under 34 age group that represents the majority of audio theatre listeners at 61% compared to the over 55 age group that represents only 11% of listeners. If you include in the 35-44 age group that percentage increase to 76.5%! The ratio of male to female listeners is approximately the same with males at 54.15% and females at 45.85%.
So clearly, the modern day revival and rejuvenation of this old art form is being driven by a younger demographic and by technology. The visionary media guru Marshall McLuhan once said ‘The medium is the message’ and that medium today is the Internet, Smartphones, Tablets, Apps etc. It’s ‘Cool’ to listen to audio theatre.
Audio Theatre has never faded away; it just keeps morphing with the times. As long as there is a good story to be told, there will always be an audience for this most imaginative and creative art form called audio theatre.
David Farquhar, Producer
Moonlight Audio Theatre
http://www.moonlightaudiotheatre.ca/
This lovely posted video of “Because the Scenery is Better: The Magic of Radio Drama” gives a fun look behind the scenes in British Audio Theatre of the 1980’s! It’s hard to imagine, but it’s grown more popular world wide now since those “heady” days! Return with us, ten years later and we’re
What a fantastic project! Free Firearm sound effects!
From the Free Firearm Sound Effects Library website:
The firearm sound library was the brainchild of a team of college students with a mutual passion for the audio and visual arts. In November, 2013 we launched a Kickstarter campaign to develop an extensive open source firearm sound effects library, and on December 7, 2013 our project was funded by an incredible group of backers and we went into full tilt production. This website serves to connect our backers with our two libraries, as well as to give credit to the backers who made it all possible.
Along with the availability of these sounds comes the need to understand their proper application. The metadata included in the sound files along with some instructional videos will help make these sounds serve you to their full potential.
Our team holds CC0 NO RIGHTS RESERVED for this library. It may be used without royalty or credit (though we would love to hear how you’ve used our sounds) for any application, personal or professional. Have at it!
Grab the raw files, or refined ones. Select which sound effects you want or grab the whole bunch!
On top of that help them complete their Medieval Weapons Sound Effects Library by donating to kickstarter!
Jack sits down with Barbra Dillon, Managing Editor of Fanboy Comics to talk about his favourite subject- AUDIO DRAMA AND THE SONIC SOCIETY of course!
Spread the word… Pass it on… Let’s make this season, beyond all the other seasons the year of AD!
Have a read of the interview here.
From Jack J. Ward’s writing pa
ge we find this tantalizing new poster for the upcoming audio drama zombie apocalypse horror from Colonial Radio Theatre– “Dead Ahead”. Penned, no less, from our own Jack as well!
And with that, listeners were transformed by the tale that P.G. Holyfield told.
I began audio drama in the first wave of podcasting back over a decade now, and even though audio books and audio drama swim in different circles we do cross back and forth occasionally.
I never got much chance to speak to P.G., but I too was wrapped up in his novel “Murder at Avedon Hill” and was excited at the opportunity for more. P.G. and I have a lot in common, a love of role playing games, fantasy, and of course Game of Thrones. P.G. is a lover of story, a weaver of tales and a podcaster of many podcasts well “Beyond the Wall” and “Tales of the Children” are the ones I’ve listened to. He’s a favourite guest at both Balticon and Dragoncon and has an endless list of friends he’s gathered in the seven years since he first podcast his novel.
I mean P.G. Holyfield is such a presence in the podcasting culture, that I guess I took it for granted that I’d be able to interview him at any time.
so, it was with some shock that I read a blog announcement from Chooch Schubert and Vivian Muse about the recent challenges to P.G.’s health.
And after I started looking at pictures after pictures of Patrick with his friends that people posted on his Facebook and through twitter, and I listened to the love that Nutty spoke about, the fact that no one, NO ONE could say anything bad about this man… it got me thinking…
Maybe, it’s time for all of us to rise and shine a little bit more. You know the phrase “rise and shine”? My parents woke me up as a kid every morning, and I wake up my boys with that little piece of advice- Rise and Shine.
P.G. Holyfield teaches me, even now, a little bit about being a better person. Not just rising to the challenges and doing the things I need to do, but maybe “shining” just a little brighter… smiling a little more, and being just that much more communicative about the people around me.
I lost my best friend, eighteen years ago, and since then, I don’t take my friends for granted. I’m very careful to tell the listeners of the Sonic Society know how much they mean to me at the end of each season. I try not to get too sappy through out the year, but maybe the secret of P.G.’s success as a man- beyond his wildly creative talent- is that he makes people around him feel valued all the time.
Not just once in a while, and without having to say a whole lot.
I’m not a very social person normally. I have trouble feeling comfortable around groups of people I don’t know- hence my presence in Conventions have always been limited. I’m more comfortable on stage and in panels than chatting afterwards.
Maybe it’s time for me try harder. Maybe its time to rise a little to complete those creative endevours. Maybe its time to shine a little more with the people around me.
If you want to help out P.G., and rise and shine a little more yourself, go to the Go Fund Me P.G. Holyfield Cancer Support page, put your memories of Patrick in an audio or a video… Talk to friends. Whatever you do…
Time to shake yourself out of bed, and rise and shine…
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